December 2007
20 posts
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North Pompano Baptist Church
North Pompano Baptist Church, located at 1101 NE 33rd Street, traces its origins to July, 1956, when the Mission Committee of Pompano Beach’s First Baptist Church purchased 7.5 acres for the new church. In February, 1957, a groundbreaking ceremony was held for the new church building, which was completed the following year. The first pastor was Rev. John Pelham, who served through 1963.
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Farm Stats
Durint the 1929-1930 season, Pompano’s 239 farms shipped over 1,500 carloads of produce via the railroad, and saw a total income of over 4.5 million dollars.
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Florida's First Governor
In 1817, President Monroe ordered General Andrew Jackson, the hero of the Battle of New Orleans, to try to stop Seminole Indians attacks on settlers in Georgia. Although Jackson was instructed not to invade Florida unless he was in hot pursuit of the Seminoles, he exceeded his instructions and invaded Florida. Jackson overthrew the governor and executed two British citizens, allegedly for...
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A Bigger Florida
12,000 years ago, the sea was much lower than the current level, and the land area of Florida was twice as large as it is today.
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Merry Christmas
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Santa Claus is Coming . . .
It’s now a parking lot, but decades ago the small parcel of land on the northeast corner of NE 2nd Street and 4th Avenue was a vacant lot that assumed magical qualities this time of the year. It was the place where Santa Claus came to visit the local children. Prior to Christmas, Santa would arrive there on the City of Pompano Beach’s fire engine to hand our bags of candy to the kids...
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Lake Santa Barbara, ca. 1930
The aerial photograph above shows the Intracoastal and Lake Santa Barbara (looking south) around 1930.
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Growth in Stages
Florida’s Turnpike was constructed in three stages:In 1957 the original section from Miami to Ft. Pierce was opened as the Sunshine State Parkway. The second section of the turnpike, from Ft. Pierce to Wildwood, was completed in 1964. The 47-mile Homestead Extension was opened in 1974.In 1990, the Turnpike Authority acquired the already-existing Sawgrass Expressway in Broward County.
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The Fisherman
The first charter fisherman at the Hillsboro Inlet was Captain J. Whitmer. A legendary angler, Captain Whitmer often led three four-hour charters a day, seven days a week.
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Big Gains
The largest increase in Broward County’s population occurred during the 1950s when it grew by an astonishing 298 percent (from 88,933 in 1950 to 333,946 in 1960). This barely surpassed the 1920s, when the population increased by 291 percent, but because of the county’s relatively small population in 1920, only 5,135 residents, the actual number of people added in the 1920s was nowhere...
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Intergrating the Police Force
The first two black police in Pompano Beach were Henry Criswell and Robert Nails. They were hired in the 1940s and patrolled the city’s black residential area. One long-time resident stated that as a result of having black policemen, “Pompano Beach became a safer place to live. School children did not skip school as much and the homeless has someone to tell their … story.”
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The Re-enactment
Pompano Beach’s Golden Jubilee [April 13 - 19, 1958] received national publicity one spring morning when twenty-two year old Glen Courson, a modern day barefoot mailman, left the Hillsboro Lighthouse, rowed across the inlet, had a sack full of mail stamped at an antique post office, and trekked down the beach to Miami along the route followed by his legendary predecessors. As he re-enacted...
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Railroad Builders
In 1895, Henry Flagler gave the job of supervising the construction of the FEC Railway from Pompano to Fort Lauderdale (neither of which existed as municipalities at that date) to Philemon Bryan. Bryan had no previous experience in building railroads; he was a citrus grower in the New Smyrna area who had been wiped out by the hard freezes in the winter of 1894-95. He hired 400 workers to come down...
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Holiday Open House
Tomorrow (December 12th) the Pompano Beach Historical Society will host its annual Holiday Open House at the Dick & Miriam Hood Center. Join your friends and neighbors for refreshments, entertainment and tours of the Kester Cottages, beginning at 6:30 PM. The Hood Center is located at 217 NE 4th Avenue, Pompano Beach. There is plenty of free parking in the immediate area.
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The Hammondville School
The Hammondville settlement, located in what is today Margate, had a small school for the children of the farm workers who lived there. Unlike the black schools in Pompano and elsewhere in the county, the Hammondville school did not close during the bean-picking season. According to long-time resident Mercerlene Rutledge, some Pompano residents paid the school’s principal, Mrs. S. B....
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The Swamp Land Act
When Florida became at state, in 1845, the national government retained the public lands it had acquired when the peninsula was purchased from Spain. On September 28, 1850, the United States Congress passed legislation that conveyed to the state government all the “swamp and overflowing lands” within Florida. This act transferred much of southern Florida from federal to state control.
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Yuletide Parade
Pompano Beach’s annual Yuletide Parade takes place tonight on Atlantic Boulevard, beginning at 6:30 PM. In recognition of the city’s Centennial Celebration, the event’s grand marshals will be Pompano’s pioneers. As many as 80 of the people honored by the Broward County Historical Commission with that designation over the years will be riding in the parade or viewing it from...
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Broward's First Surveyor
The first survey of what is today Broward County was performed in 1825 under the direction of James Gadsen. Born in South Carolina in 1788, Gadsen was a military officer who fought in the War of 1812 and the first Seminole War. When Congress refused to confirm his appointment to the rank of general, he left the army and settled in Florida, which had just recently been acquired by the United...
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First Town
In 1896, J. W. Pierce and Mac Smith, two surveyors for the Model Land Company, came to this area and platted the area around Lake Lettuce (now Lake Santa Barbara) and lands to its northeast for a town. The “town,” which was almost entirely unpopulated, was supposedly named Dresden at the Beach.
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Help for Homeowners
One of our endangered housing species is the small, wood-framed cottage — there are still a lot of them scattered throughout Pompano Beach’s older neighborhoods, but many owners consider them lacking distinction with limited potential. Those individuals might want to avail themselves of a program offered by the magazine, Cottage Living. Each month the magazine runs a feature in which...